Filed ex parte motion for temporary custody - motion mysteriously disappeared...

[Heston]

I wonder if anyone can help or advise with this one.  Previously I posted about my younger child.  This is about my older child who was beaten up by the BM recently.  The BM smashed up his room and cell phone too.  To cut a long story short, my child got to my house and did not want to return to the BM.  I waited over a week before filing an exp parte motion for emergency custody so there was time for him to change his mind.  He wants to live with me and I filed the ex parte motion last week with my affidavit and my son's affidavit attached.  I looked up the laws on this and I know the judge normally sees the person filing the motion the same day and issues a temporary custody order if appropriate.  The judge was not there and was away till Monday.  This week I phoned the court and was put through to various people who claimed they had no knowledge of the motion.  I went to the court and spoke to various people in the appropriate depts and they claimed to have no knowledge of the motion.  The last clerk I spoke to said my copies of the motion meant nothing and they could not find the original motion that I filed last week.  Outcome: someone in that courthouse tipped off my ex wife (BM) that I was in the courthouse.  I went to pick my son up from school but the BM was there with cops flaunting her custody order.  The cops told my son if he went with me they would arrest me so he went back with his mom.  When I tried to phone him later the BM refused to let me speak to him.  I know the BM is now probably going to file an EPO to keep me away from her house and she will do everything she can through the courts to get the custody changed as this will be her typical MO.  She has now said she will make sure I never see him again.  I did nothing wrong here, I just took my child in who'd been badly beaten.  I let him speak to his mom.  I gave him time to decide what he wanted to do and there was no pressure from me.  But yet now I might lose him.  The fact that emergency custody order was not issued and my motion "lost" in the court, means I was in breach of the custody order.  Does anyone know if there is anything I can do over what happened in the court?  If I go to the judge he will probably say what the clerks said, that without the original nothing can be done.  I paid the filing fee of almost $150.00.  But it didn't get filed.  Or if it did, it was destroyed after I filed it by someone in the courthouse.  I am acting pro se as I cannot afford a lawyer at the present time.  Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

[ocean]

Go down to the court house again tomorrow with your copies and proof you paid. Ask to speak to a supervisor and nicely explain you need to know where that order is that you are your own lawyer. If they can not find the paperwork from last week, you would like to refile, right now and get it before a judge today. Bring all original paperwork with you just like the last time. Also, at the end I would make sure that you tell supervisor that someone in that office is getting involved where they should not be. If judge does not order ex parte then file for change of custody paperwork...get down there before it opens so you get there before ex does for restraining order or whatever else she pulls. Once judge sees paperwork from you, they probably wont sign for RO.

Is it enough for social service to be called? bruises? Can call his school and talk to social worker to see if they see bruises, if they do, they are required by law to call them.

[Heston]

Thanks for that suggestion.  I will go down to the courthouse.  Today they gave me the runaround.  They just kept saying without the original there was nothing they could do, and then they checked and said the original isn't here so we can't do anything.  It is just an unbelievable situation.  I don't think I can file the ex parte motion again now my child is with the BM.  To file for an emergency custody order I think the child needs to be away from the dangerous parent.  My child did have bruises and marks but they are gone now.  I did make the school aware of what happened but didn't call social services.. 

[ocean]

In the ex parte motion tomorrow try writing "father filed on xx date an ex parte motion while child was in his care, the courts misplaced ex parte motion (copies attached) and father is requesting re-filing paperwork, in the mean-time mother took child from school on xx with police using last court order when she found out about the ex parte paperwork. Father tried last night to speak to child, mother is refusing. Father requests .....xyz"

If you live in same school district or can get child to school, I would add "father can get child to school and this will not interrupt his schooling and activities"

[Heston]

Thanks for that.  I will work on it right away and give it a try tomorrow.

[MixedBag]

Do you have a copy that is stamped "filed" on top?
and what they all said.....
BTW -- the court might not consider it an emergency.....

[Kitty C.]

Hindsight is always 20/20, but......

If this ever happens again and your son comes to you visibly abused (bruises or any kind of marks on the body that would suggest abuse), call the police ASAP.  You HAVE to get this reported as soon as possible in order to make anything happen.  Right now, since he has no visible marks of abuse, it might be a waste of time to file the ex parte now, as the evidence of abuse is gone.

Police are mandatory reporters and if they observe signs of abuse they are required by law to report it to social services.  But the key here is immediate reporting by you if you observe it.

Back when DS was 4 (he's 22 now) and his dad was still trying to discredit me and take DS away, he reported me for abuse.  And he went straight to DHS to do it, claiming I had beat DS.  But when they checked DS out and found nothing, BF said that it had supposedly happened 2 weeks prior.  They totally discredited his report, but that didn't stop him from taking off with DS 1800 miles away to CA.  (That's another LONG story!)  But he did leave me a note stating that he had reported me to DHS and to contact them.

The conversation I had with DHS was quite interesting.......they said they did interview BF and observed DS.  But when I asked them what would happen next, all they would tell me is that the report would be destroyed after one year if it is unfounded....very pointedly, I might add.

Some time later, I talked to a social worker who divulged to me that they never took BF's report seriously from the get-go, since there were no obvious signs of abuse like he claimed.  Their claim was that if he had really been concerned about DS's welfare, BF would have reported it immediately, not 2 weeks later.  That's a huge red flag for them.  So they had told me up front that the report would be destroyed after 1 year to let me know that they weren't pursuing a case.

I never heard another word from them about this until one year later....true to their word....I received a letter from them stating that the original report had been destroyed.

Always report suspected abuse immediately....regardless of the circumstances.

[Davy]

First, you should have expected same day (or next) service on the original ex-parte' emergency motion and you should not have left the court house until a date and time was specified.  Right now the original motion is probably sitting in a basket in the judges chambers. 

More importantly I want to give emphasis to Kitty's advice for the involvement of law enforcement and to add-on that an ER medical report is "golden"......

..... again, it's a very long story.  There came a time when an assistant DA called me to his office.  I had been left-behind in the home state (TX) approx. 2 years earlier and was now near the kids in BM's hometown (where we had never lived before)  (central IL) since I had recently learned of the "trouble".  The DA showed (no copy) me an ER medical report for my daughter... both sides of face bruised, bruise on upper arm, and the one that nearly had me black-out ... a human bite on her thigh thru her Levi's that broke the skin. 

DA alarmed with BM's boyfriend (a golden boy) and, more so, with BM who was present at the time and basically encouraged the boyfriend and NOT protecting her daughter.   I soon learned the local police had been warned (from the mayor's office) to NEVER take the kids for medical treatment but one officer FINALLY said "screw this"  and took my daughter to the hospital.  Earlier in this famlly matter, the IL DCFS community office  considered my wife, her married boyfriend, and my 3 kids as "the family" and advised that I was only "a paycheck" and to keep sending those CS checks.

The moral of the story.  One good police officer gave up his job to save 3 kids by exposing a corrupt system.       

[Heston]

Thanks to everyone that responded with advice and suggestions.  Am just providing a quick update.  The court found the ex parte motion and it was granted last Tuesday.  I showed it to the school and the school had to hand my child back to me.  So, I currently have one more week with temporary custody of my child.  I am not sure if I am supposed to file a new motion asking for residential custody.  If that's the case, it will have to be done tomorrow, as motions must be filed within 7 days of the scheduled hearing.  Or if I just show up at the scheduled hearing without having filed a new motion for residential custody.  I've been trying to find out, as I am acting pro se at the moment out of necessity.  I don't want to ruin anything by making a wrong move.

[MixedBag]

That's the side where I feel out of my comfort zone in giving advice -- because I'm not an attorney, AND different jurisdictions handle their rules differently and have different rules.

Did your original motion ASK for residential custody?